Facebook Ads – Choosing the Objective of Your Campaign

Facebook ads are a highly targeted digital marketing tool that, when applied correctly, can yield impressive returns on investment. However, many small businesses have dabbled in Facebook ads without seeing much success, often falling foul of restrictions such as text on images or spending a decent budget without generating a return on investment. There are no ‘tricks’ to creating a winning Facebook ad campaign, but we can offer advice to help you understand the importance of each section within Facebook Ads Manager.

Before you dive in and start using Facebook ads for the first time, it’s important to decide what the objective of your campaign will be. Whether you want to reach people likely to download your business app, encourage purchases from your website, raise attendance at an event or simply drive more traffic to your blog posts, having a clear goal is crucial.

Facebook Ads – Choosing the Objective of Your Campaign

Once you open Facebook Ads Manager, the first decision is choosing the objective of your campaign. Ensuring your campaign is focused on one particular objective increases the likelihood of reaching the right audience and achieving your desired results. This requires careful thought and planning.

Before embarking on any advertising or promotional activity, it’s vital to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve. What is the true goal? Once this is established, selecting the right objective becomes much easier. If you’re looking at the options and feeling unsure, it’s likely that your goals haven’t been clearly defined yet.

Top Tip: Take a step back and start with the end result in mind!

Facebook Ads Manager provides 11 objectives to choose from:

1. Boost Your Posts:

Blogs are becoming increasingly important for marketing and establishing a business’s reputation. You can simply add the URL of your latest blog post and move to the next step. This feature is also ideal for promoting competitions, events, training courses, webinars or news of significant achievements.

2. Promote Your Page:

If your goal is to increase likes and engagement on your Facebook business page, this option will help bring more people to interact with you.

3. Send People to Your Website:

Directing traffic to your website is often used to promote a specific product or service. Make sure the landing page provides exactly what was advertised—don’t make your audience search for it, as they won’t! As online shoppers, we’re all impatient, so give your audience what they’re looking for immediately.

3. Increase Conversions to Your Website:

It’s not enough to drive traffic to your site without a specific action in mind. Whether you want visitors to sign up for a newsletter or engage with a special offer, this option helps you focus on achieving those conversions.

4. Get Installs of Your App:

This objective directs users to the store where your app is available for download, encouraging more installs.

5. Increase Engagement in Your App:

If you want to increase user interaction within your app, this objective can help by directing users to the app store for further engagement.

6. Reach People Near Your Business:

This option is ideal for promoting your local business, helping you reach people in your geographic area who are more likely to engage with you.

7. Raise Attendance at Your Event:

If you’re running an event and have it listed as a Facebook event, you can use this objective to drive attendance by directing people to the event page.

8. Get People to Claim Your Offer:

Whether you’re running a discount or special offer, this option makes it easy for people to claim their reward.

9. Get Video Views:

Videos are a powerful marketing tool. If you have a product launch video or behind-the-scenes footage, this objective helps increase views.

10. Collect Leads for Your Business:

One of Facebook’s newer features, this option allows you to gather contact information from users who have expressed interest in your business.

Why Choosing the Right Objective Matters

Getting the objective of your Facebook ad campaign right the first time is essential. Facebook’s Ads Manager optimises ad delivery based on the objective you select, ensuring your ad reaches people who are most likely to engage. If you input the wrong information or use an unsuitable URL for your chosen objective, the Ads Manager will prompt you to make adjustments.

Once the objective is selected, Facebook allows you to create a tracking pixel for your campaign, giving you the ability to monitor and optimise performance. You’ll also need to assign a title to your campaign.

What’s Next?

The next step involves setting up your campaign by defining your target audience and determining your budget. We’ll cover these aspects in next week’s article. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Facebook Ads, choosing the objective of your campaign or social media marketing in general, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our friendly team at The Last Hurdle is always happy to help—email us at hello@thelasthurdle.co.uk.